


Words Unspoken

by Rainyhart



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Original Character(s), Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainyhart/pseuds/Rainyhart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out, Dean doesn't talk that much. But it's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Sam thinks it’s a little weird the first time he sees Cas wear anything without long sleeves. 

At first, it’s just a few shirts from Dean’s wardrobe on random days of the week. Sam tries to keep track in case there’s a pattern to it, but after three weeks he comes up with nothing. 

By the start of the next month Cas starts buying shirts of his own so he can wear a new one every day. He spends a lot of time with Dean, usually in his room, but there can be days where they just as easily leave a note and disappear from the bunker entirely for a good three to four hours. 

Then, Cas starts asking Sam questions.

“Do you believe it’s possible to not want to talk anymore?”

“Like…forever?” 

“More like a few days,” Cas corrects. 

Huh. Sam blinks. So that’s new. 

“I guess it makes sense yeah, why not?” 

“And it’s okay?”

“What?”

“To not want to talk, I mean.”

“Oh,” Sam’s not really sure why this conversation is happening, but he does know, however, that would say anything to get the worried wrinkles off Cas’ face, so of course he says, “Sure, Cas.”

\--

He’s in the middle of dinner with Cas and Dean when Cas suddenly gets up and grabs another roll from the kitchen that he quietly puts on Dean’s plate. 

“Cas?” Sam waits for him to finish a bite of his own soup before asking, “Did Dean ask for another one?”

“Yes.”

Sam waits for a further explanation, but he’s not surprised when nothing more is said. As far as he knows he could have dazed out completely and missed an entire five minute conversation. 

It shouldn’t be a big deal. 

It’s not a big deal.

\--

Cas giggles a lot during the movie they’re watching together. 

Sam wonders if there’s jokes in it he doesn’t get- maybe they’re funnier in Enochian or something. He asks Dean for the third time if it’s an inside joke, but all he gets is more giggles from Cas. 

“Sorry,” Cas sucks in a breath. “It tickles.”

“What tickles?” 

Dean gets up to leave for bed. 

\--

It isn’t until Sam drives the impala home from a hunt that he sees it.

Glancing in the rear-view mirror he can see Dean gently running his index finger in calculated little movements along Cas’ forearm. 

Cas breathes out slowly when Dean stops, as though if he made any type of sound beforehand Dean wouldn’t have finished. He rubs his thumb over a hole in Dean’s jeans and then quietly kisses his temple the second he feels Dean pull his finger away. 

“I love you too, Dean.” 

\--

Three days later Sam finds an article on how to communicate with people that have selective mutism on a table in their library.

And it’s not a big deal. 

And it’s okay.


	2. Two

“So that’s why you started wearing t-shirts?” Sam asks once he finally sits down with Cas about this. 

“Yes,” Cas affirms. 

“And you created a whole language with Dean?”

Cas smiles with a shrug. “He finds it easier when he feels like saying something. If I could, I would tell you how each word works. But-…”

“But it’s Dean’s.”

Cas nods. 

“I feel kind of bad. I mean-…that I didn’t know.” 

“Don’t. It isn’t because of you, Sam.” 

But Sam’s not so sure. He remembers reading that a lot of people with selective mutism are actually fine talking in places they’re comfortable in, or with people they know very well. It makes him wonder why Dean isn’t talking at home at all. Or around him, anyway. He tries not to care.

“Does he speak to you?”

“He did, once.” 

Sam leaves it at that.

On a Tuesday afternoon he finds Dean strumming a guitar while he quietly hums along. It stops the second Sam enters the room, but once he passes completely through he starts to hear it again, just faintly. 

He still listens to classic rock. 

He still fixes his car every weekend.

He still gets pie whenever they go out to eat. (Even _after_ eating his meal and Cas’ sides.)

He’s still Dean, even when he can’t talk. 

There are some new things, though. 

In addition to using his secret language with Cas’, he writes short letters. There are times where Cas will leave for short periods of time to handle something that has to do with upstairs, and each time Sam finds an envelope with Cas’ name on the front waiting for him on the coffee table of their living room. Some will have little drawn symbols next to it; a heart, a rainy cloud, a smiley face. 

Cas reads each and every one of them the moment he returns.

They’re both afraid to take Dean on a hunt, Sam thinks. In case he gets caught in a situation he can’t get out of without either of them being aware. Some days Cas goes alone, other times Sam. They never go together. Dean never asks, so they never tell. 

A hunt comes up in Nebraska that sounds like the work of a Crocotta. 

Sam’s just about out the door with his duffel when Dean appears in front of him and shoves something into his hand. When Sam gets a look at it he sees his name and swears in that moment his heart lifts into his mouth in 0.7 seconds from seeing it alone. 

It’s a letter, hand written for him.

From Dean. 

_Sam,_

_It’s not you._

_I’m sorry._

_You’re still kind of a bitch._

_Dean._

The drive to Nebraska isn’t as awkward as he thinks it is with Dean nodding his head to Led Zeppelin the whole time.

He’s still pretty damn awesome with a knife.

He’s still Dean.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Implied Abuse

When Dean is 4, he gets dropped off at a new day care with a big playground and a tall teacher in a shiny yellow coat. They play a name game so that he can introduce himself but when the teacher in the yellow coat gets to him he shakes his head and stares at his lap. 

She asks two more times before saying something about being shy and moving on.

Dean plays with blocks for two weeks without saying a word. 

At the end of the second week Dean gets a baby brother and leaves the class. 

His mother dies six months later.

-  
When Dean is 12, he gets a Valentine’s Day card from the boy in his class two rows up. No one in the class but Dean gets one from the boy, so he knows it’s especially for him. At recess, instead of going outside he sits in the bathroom and reads the card exactly ten times. 

_Dean,_

_I like when we sit together at lunch._

_You’re very nice and cool. I wish you could come to my house and play on my swings._

_It would be very nice and fun._

_Logan_

Dean slips a note with a smiley face on it into Logan’s desk and keeps the note at the bottom of his backpack. 

-

When Dean is 20, his dad and his brother leave together for a hunt and Dean decides to take a road trip. He packs up a few hundred dollars and necessities, grabs a map from the gas station on the corner, and drives. 

His plan is to get through five states and back before anyone knows he left, but two states into his trip he meets Lisa Braeden. 

She invites him to her place Friday night and he doesn’t leave until Sunday morning. It’s the first time in a long time that Dean feels completely comfortable, lying beneath the sheets and whispering little things to someone who just sees him as Dean, and nothing else. He wishes it were this easy all the time.

He really doesn’t want to leave. 

-

When Dean turns 22, his brother Sam leaves for college. 

His dad starts to pick fights with him, and Dean isolates himself as much as possible. 

They still go on hunts, but these are filled with hour long lectures about how he needs to get his shit together and stop being so depressed. That he should be at a hundred and ten percent at all times. 

Focus. 

Focus.

Focus.

He tries. 

Cassie Robinson isn’t Lisa, but Dean likes her, too. 

One date turns into four, each one ending with them sharing the same bed, and Dean feels surprisingly fine.

He _really_ likes Cassie. 

Another week goes by before Dean is told he’s leaving, and he writes Cassie the longest letter he’s ever written with everything he’s wanted to tell her the morning after he packs to go. 

She crumples it up when he gets out of the shower and tells him to leave.

His heart crumples with it. 

-

Dean’s thirty six, and he’s happy, for the most part.

He wishes the words in his head felt easier to say, sometimes. Or that he didn’t think of all of this as his fault. 

But Sam and Cas aren’t going anywhere. 

And they’re doing just fine. 

So Dean’s happy, for the most part.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how many of these I should write, but thank you to everyone for the kudos and comments! It's nice to know that someone enjoys them so it's very appreciated!

Dean has a favorite spot by the lake he likes to visit. 

It’s a quiet shoreline just a ways down the road from the bunker with a broken fishing dock and an old turned over canoe that bobs right beside it, permanently tied still. 

Cas finds him there on a cold December afternoon, of all times, bundled in a coat and big clunky boots shuffling around at the edge of the still, freezing water. Dean walks a ways before he turns and notices anyone is there at all, and when he sees who’s there Cas isn’t sure exactly if he’s relieved or disappointed. 

A lingering moment passes, and then Dean makes his way over to one of the boulders closest to him so he can sit. 

“It’s cold,” Cas says quietly, when he finally decides to approach him. 

Dean shakes his head, but the way he shivers and shoves his hands further into his pockets is far too telling. 

“Would you like company?” 

It seems like the thing to ask next once Cas realizes that he’s not sure if Dean would rather be by himself or not. He gets his answer when Dean scoots over on the rock enough that he can join him, and he sits just in time for Dean to push his sleeve up off of his forearm, index finger at the ready to trace something. 

The cold doesn’t even bother him while Dean’s writing, and it only takes him a few strokes to figure out what he’s trying to say.

“You have something?”

Dean smiles over the success of his message and nods, pulling a small object on a chain out from his coat pocket to eagerly reveal to Cas. 

When Cas gets a look at it he smiles fondly. 

“The bird whistle I gave you,” Dean lets him pick it up, and he eyes it a moment before handing it back, “Have you used it?”

Cas doesn’t get an answer right away, but then Dean brings it up to his mouth and blows it with a preciseness that definitely wouldn’t be possible without at least a little bit of practice, so he supposes he has. 

A few birds in the forest of trees nearby fly off in the opposite direction, and Cas laughs quietly until Dean notices this himself and huffs in annoyance. 

“Here,” Cas gently takes it back from him and tries it himself. Still, it attracts no birds, but it’s probably due to the fact that his try sounded nowhere near as good as Dean’s did.

Then again he shouldn’t be surprised with all Dean has been surprising both him and Sam with lately. Neither had heard him actually play the guitar until recently. It turns out Dean hadn’t ever played one, either, but he had a hobby of reading sheet music; and the moment he got his own guitar the songs he had filed in his brain translated to the guitar like seamless magic that Cas anticipates hearing around the bunker at least twice a week. 

Guitar isn’t the only artistic thing Dean is good at, though. Sometimes when Cas thinks Dean is writing a note for Sam or himself, he’s actually writing little descriptive paragraphs about places he’s been while he’s hunting.

With Dean’s permission, Cas reads them to himself, occasionally. It’s amazing to see how much detail Dean remembers, because instead of arguing about who sits shotgun or where the next pit stop will be, he pays attention to everything else.

He remembers the exact color of the sky when they pull in to their motel, or the size of the mountains that pass by them in the distance while they drive on the highway, and then, sometimes; he draws them.

They’re sketches, mostly, but Cas thinks they’re just as beautiful as any collection of priceless art he’s ever seen in a museum. 

Dean’s airy laugh from beside Cas brings him back to the present, and he quietly hands the whistle back over so that Dean can try it again. 

On the third try a small flock of birds rustle out from the trees, scattering around the sky for a moment before deciding on a direction and flying over their heads. 

The entire thing is picturesque, but Cas isn’t paying attention to the birds. 

Instead, he watches Dean’s face light up at the sight above, and thinks that, without a doubt:

If there’s any proof that beauty can exist without words, he’s _absolutely_ sure that Dean is it.


	5. Five

**Dean’s Journal** \- _January 2015_

_Missouri is nice. Sam was drawn to the mountains the entire time in. I think Cas might have liked them too. I wish we could stay here, maybe, after the hunt wraps up._

_Maybe we can._

_Right now, It’s forty five minutes past midnight and everyone else is passed out. There’s a soap-opera on mute on the TV with people crying at each other about love, probably._

_Sam got another card from a witness today. Because I’m thirty six, and grown men shouldn’t be shy at this age, so if I ever needed a therapist…_

_I don’t know where it is now._

_Sometimes I remember therapy from before; since I wasn’t allowed to hunt until I learned how to "speak up."_

_A part of me wonders if everyone thought I was deaf, too. It would explain a lot of the conversations I’ve heard with me in the room._

_~~Who knew the word dumb was so strong.~~ _

_It’s not like it matters, though. Teaching yourself to hunt isn’t that hard._

_Libraries exist._

_I’m not sure why I’m writing any of this._

_I just checked the trash by the bed. The card is there. I’m not sure who threw it away, but it makes me feel a little bit better._

_Cas, probably. Sam would have ripped it._

_Good, though._

_I like salt guns better than communication cards anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought of posting one of Dean's journals to see if they would be remotely interesting to add here and there between ficlets. y/n? Let me know!


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick addition to the mute!dean series I posted on tumblr a week ago.

Monday starts rough. Dean blasts angry music in his room all morning, muffled only by the shut door. It slams shut when he exits, stomping down the hall with his basket of laundry, making everyone aware of his mood. Breakfast is eaten quietly. Dean leaves early and tapes a piece of paper with a black scribble on it to his door. It’s a sign he wants to be left alone. No one bothers him until it’s taken down.

It rains on Tuesday. Soft music pours throughout the bunker from the strum of a guitar on and off. Dean reads by himself for a while, and drifts off. Cas asks him if he wants to play a board game, maybe Candy Land? They play it until dinner and then watch movies with subtitles on mute until both retire for bed.

The sun is back, on Wednesday. Sam and Cas enlist Dean to help plant some vegetables in their garden. Its noon when they finish, covered in dirt and filled with exhaustion. Sam gets them all popsicles, and they sit in the shade flinging dirt back and forth while they cool down. For dinner, they barbecue. Dean plants himself on the ground and draws while he waits, Sam coming to take a peek at it every once and a while. After the third time Dean decides to make it a gift for him.

On most of Thursday, Dean writes. Situated crisscross in the den with the eraser of a pencil in his mouth and his reading glasses on. Sam asks him what he’s doing when he finds him still writing at early afternoon. Dean writes, _‘Getting rid of :(,’_ and then, _‘Not your fault’._ Sam lets him be. Later, Dean buys everyone pizza and challenges Cas to charades. Sam judges, and Dean wins, naturally.

Friday, Dean wakes up early. One of Cas’ notes is sitting out on his dresser, and he takes advantage. Grabbing a notecard of his own, Dean carefully writes a message as best as he can in Cas’ handwriting. When he’s finished, he slips it under Sam’s door and heads back to bed. Unlike what he planned, Dean wakes up an hour later to arguing. It’s coming from Sam’s room, so Dean sneaks into the dining area instead. An entire plate of bacon, eggs, toast, and sausage waits for him. On the counter, a note: _‘Sam, Dean asks that you make him a complete breakfast from the list of the following foods or he’ll share with me the most recent of your embarrassing moments; 4 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, 6 pieces of bacon, 2 pieces of sausage, and a fruit smoothie. Thanks, - Cas.’_ Dean slips the note into his pocket and eats breakfast with a smile.


End file.
